expressing spiritual stuff through art. Art: it's not just the medium, the end result, the imagination or the skill or what people think of it that defines it, it is as much the human process of human re-creation that express the indefinable essence of what it means to be human. To engage and to try and appreciate art is a journey of embracing community; trying to see beyond yourself and your own world to the world somebody else experiences. It is intensely spiritual, it is the language of God. It embodies the mission of God and the human response.

Light on a hill

9th Sept 2012, Salem Methodist Church (Layton, Blackpool)

Preacher and worship leader: Rev Laurence Potter

Text: Isa 58:5-9, Mt 5:14-16

Laurence preached on his perspectives of the benefits of the Christian faith and encouraged the congregation to reflect the light of Christ in their lives. He set his message in the context of a society that is increasingly anti-Christian.

I am not convinced of this myself, whilst there is some anti-Christian attitudes I think that for the most part people are indifferent about religion in general and have no time for something that they perceive as irrelevant to their lives. They therefore give little if any attention to traditional Church especially when its message seems to be trying to answer questions that few are concerned about whilst pushing a social agenda that has more to do with white Victorian morality than the Gospel of Christ in order to halt the erosion of what are thought to be ‘Christian values’.

Where I agree with Laurence is in the need for spiritual renewal and I believe the focus of this is in attention to the Gospel of Christ, engaging with implications for our lives; our identity, our value and our values, our passions and our poisons, our community and our roles with in it. The Gospel should be life giving and following Jesus should be an adventure in exploring life in all its fullness, finding our place in God’s kingdom and seeing it develop around us in our homes and communities. Too many Christian seem concerned with who or what is right or wrong and treat the Bible like its a rule book instead of the story of revealed grace in response to human failure.

Thus my image shows a lone Christian pointing to the cross of Christ. The grey people might just as easily be the ‘church attenders’ as the ‘disinterested’ beyond the walls (some of whom are more spiritually hungry and aware than many that warm the pews on a Sunday for an hour.)